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May 07, 2010

As of now we're no longer selling agave syrup - here's why

Since you’re reading this, chances are you consume as little refined sugar as possible – if you even consume it at all. But what about agave syrup (also known as agave nectar)? That’s completely different…isn’t it? If you’re anything like the average raw food fan you’ll be regularly adding agave to your recipes in the belief that it’s a natural (and therefore healthy) sweetener. You’ll be buying and eating foods that contain agave without thinking for a moment that these foods may be as bad for you as the processed foods you used to eat in their place. You may even believe that agave has “beneficial properties”.

When raw agave came on the market six years ago, it sounded like the answer to every sugar-loving raw foodist’s prayers. It is mainly fructose, which is both much sweeter than glucose, and much lower on the Glycaemic Index. So here at last was a sweetener that was sugary enough to satisfy the sweetest of tooths, yet that would not cause those undesirable blood sugar spikes. Better still it had the delicious consistency of a runny, easily pourable syrup that worked like a dream in a huge range of recipes – and yet it was completely natural! It sounded almost too good to be true – and there was a reason for that.

Having looked into agave, we now believe it is very far from the health food it’s so often marketed as. It is, in our opinion, a synthetic, chemically refined sugar with the ability to seriously harm health if consumed regularly and long term.

In fact, all things considered, in our opinion agave is no better than regular refined sugar. We’ll go a step further – we’re no longer even convinced that the lower-quality brands are any better than high-fructose corn syrup. We realize what a shocking statement that is, but we believe that if you read this article to the end and then do some research of your own on this topic, you will be similarly unconvinced. And since we wouldn’t sell regular sugar, we can’t continue to sell agave.

First, let’s clear up the issue of the name. Agave syrup is most commonly known as agave nectar. In this article we stick to the former name as we believe that thinking of agave as a syrup gives a much more accurate picture of what it is than the term “nectar”, which conjures up an image of it flowing straight out of the plant and into the jar. The pictures and descriptions on many product labels only serve to mislead the consumer into believing that agave is an unrefined, wholly natural substance.

In reality, agave syrup is a relatively new product, having been developed only during the 1990s. It is derived principally from inulin, a polysaccharide (or starch) found in the Mexican agave plant. The inulin is converted into concentrated, refined fructose (a monosaccharide, or simple sugar) through a process called hydrolyzation.

As such, an even more accurate name for this product would be “high-fructose agave syrup” – or even “hydrolyzed high-fructose agave syrup”. Not quite so appetizing when we call it what it is, is it?

Regular agave is heat-processed and its production can involve a long list of manmade chemicals. There are persistent rumours in the raw market that it is not possible to achieve either the texture or the taste of agave syrup without processing it at heats well above the “raw” threshold.

But this is not necessarily true, as there is an alternative method which produces agave syrup at low heats. It uses enzymes derived from the mould Aspergillus niger to hydrolyze the inulin into fructose.

We have found no proof that any of the agave on the market that is being sold as raw is anything but. However, we can’t 100% vouch for raw agave syrup’s “rawness” either, as we haven’t looked into this particular issue in any depth and nor do we plan to, as we now believe that agave is so far from healthy that whether or not it is raw is beside the point.

Most of the agave syrup on sale in the US and Europe is imported from Mexico. You might assume that there are strict controls in place to ensure that any imported goods are what they claim on the label before allowing them to go on sale as not only food products, but also health food products. So you may be shocked to hear that a decade ago, the “certified organic agave nectar” of one large US importer was discovered to be laced with a cheaper concentrated sweetener – none other than high-fructose corn syrup.

There is no guarantee that this isn’t going on in parts of the agave industry today, but let’s leave that concern aside and assume that all the agave being sold today is indeed exactly what it says on the tin – because if it is, that alone is reason enough to stop consuming it. To illustrate why, let’s take a moment to compare it to high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS). HFCS is as reviled as a junky, processed, health-harming sweetener as agave is celebrated as a high-quality, natural, healthy one, so surely they must be two very different things?

You’d think so, but in reality there are some strong similarities. They are both processed and concentrated sweeteners and they are also similar in chemical terms. The HFCS used in soft drinks averages 55% fructose and 45% glucose – exactly the same ratio as the lower-fructose agave on the market. For comparison, refined white sugar is 50% fructose and 50% glucose. Agave can have much higher percentages of fructose – anything up to the 90s. But so can HFCS! The form of HFCS commonly used in packaged diet foods is 90% fructose.

Much of the raw agave nectar we have come across clocks in at the 85% fructose mark. Maybe you think of fructose as “fruit sugar” and therefore think it is a “good” sugar. We’ve been there, thought that. But the fructose in fruit and the fructose in agave, HFCS and other processed sweeteners are two entirely different things.

Fructose is only good for us if consumed in moderate quantities and bound up with fibre, vitamins, minerals and phytonutrients – i.e. the way it appears in nature, and the way we consume fructose when we eat whole fruits. Refined fructose can have a number of extremely harmful effects in the body, though people vary greatly in how much they can consume before these effects - which are often hidden for many years - start to manifest. Specifically, it has been linked with insulin resistance, diabetes, obesity, accelerated aging, high blood pressure, hardening of the arteries and liver inflammation.

First, most of the fructose in fruit is in the form of L-fructose or levulose. The fructose in HFCS is a different form – D-fructose – only tiny amounts of which occur in fruit. D-fructose is not converted to blood glucose in any quantity, so it does not elevate blood glucose levels. This is what has earned agave its classification as a low-GI and therefore diabetic-friendly sweetener.

But the fact that refined fructose is not converted into glucose is very far from being a good thing. Instead, it is primarily converted into triglycerides and body fat – which is why fructose raises blood triglyceride levels much higher than glucose does. In fact, a study published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism found that obese subjects who drank fructose-sweetened drinks with meals for a day had triglyceride levels almost 200% higher than obese subjects who drank glucose-sweetened drinks during the same period.

Chronic high triglyceride levels translate into insulin resistance (a precursor for type-2 diabetes), inflammation and hardening of the arteries. In fact, many scientists believe triglycerides are a more important marker for heart disease than cholesterol.

Excessive fructose consumption has also been linked with obesity. It doesn’t induce the same level of satisfaction as glucose because it doesn’t trigger appetite inhibitors in the same way, and studies have shown that both animals and people consume more of foods that are sweetened with fructose than of those sweetened with glucose.

And there’s more... If you’re eating raw or high raw, one of the reasons may be the well-known rejuvenative effects of this diet. We’re sure you already know that consuming too much refined sugar accelerates aging. Well, as we’ve already demonstrated, agave syrup is a refined sugar. But because of its sky-high fructose content, when it comes to aging, agave may be even worse than refined white sugar. It has been scientifically established that fructose creates 8-10 times the advanced glycation end products (AGEs) as glucose. This is a huge topic, but in very simple terms, AGEs are compounds that age the tissues of the body, both inside and out.

Raw agave is certainly a food that will cause a high level of AGE formation – once again because of that 85% refined free fructose content. As an aside, the extent to which the fructose in whole fruits does the same is still under debate. However, many scientists studying fructose and AGE formation concur that fruit is not a food we need to avoid, if only because the fructose in fruit is so much less concentrated than in refined sweeteners. It is also the natural L-fructose, bound with fibre and nutrients, which will limit any negative effects.

Yet another problem with refined free fructose is its impact on the liver. Glucose goes directly into the bloodstream so that our tissues and organs can use it as energy, with only around a third passing through the liver, but all fructose must be metabolized in the liver. The livers of laboratory animals fed large amounts of fructose develop fatty deposits and cirrhosis, and excessive fructose consumption is believed to contribute to the development of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease in humans.

It doesn’t end there. A number of studies have demonstrated that high fructose consumption can cause elevations in blood levels of uric acid. Elevated uric acid has been linked with heart disease, and it has also been shown to raise blood pressure, cause kidney damage and interfere with insulin responses. In some people, uric acid accumulates in joints and causes gout. Widely considered a Victorian disease and most commonly associated with high intake of animal protein, gout has in fact been increasing in prevalence in the US ever since the introduction of HFCS 40 years ago.

In summary, agave syrup is not a natural food but a processed, concentrated sweetener containing a high amount of fructose. Excess fructose has been strongly linked with a number of extremely harmful health effects.

That said, it’s what you do most of the time that determines your health, so if you choose to consume a little agave every now and again it’s really not worth worrying about. To ensure no one misunderstands what we mean by that, we would say just the same about regular sugar. In our opinion, a wise approach to agave is to view these two in the same category.

In fact, these days we would personally sooner consume a sweet treat containing organic raw cane sugar than we would one containing agave (all other things being equal) as we believe it to be the lesser of the two evils. We certainly would not recommend that anyone consume agave any more often than they would regular sugar. For you that may be never, it may a few times a year, it may be once or twice a month, it may be more frequently.

The main take-home message is that if you have been liberally adding agave to your smoothies and other recipes (or consuming packaged foods containing it) most days in the mistaken belief it is a health food, try not to be alarmed by what you’ve read here, but if you goal is optimal health, do consider stopping.

Here are some brief pointers:

1. To be sure that agave is only an infrequent indulgence for you and your family – if you choose to consume it at all – we suggest banishing it from the repertoire of sweeteners you use in your kitchen. So go ahead and have the raw dessert that’s shouting your name next time you’re eating at your favourite raw restaurant without worrying about what's in it – but get rid of that bottle from your kitchen cupboard and replace it with some healthier alternatives.

2. Many experts say the healthiest sweetener of all is the herb stevia. However, stevia cannot be legally sold in the UK or EU. If you are in the US, where it is available, and can get this to work for you, that’s fantastic. But many people find its bitter overtones a deal-breaker, and as it comes in liquid or powder form it can also be problematic in recipes that call for a syrup-like sweetener.

3. In our opinion the best choice is date “syrup”. You simply soak the quantity of dates you require for 15 minutes to soften them, discard the water, and then blend them until smooth. This forms a thick, syrup-like substance that replaces agave very well in many raw recipes.

4. Organic raw honey is another option which will work well in some recipes.

Dates are around 30% fructose and honey starts at around 40%. By comparison, HFCS and the lowest fructose brands of agave are 55% – and again, raw agave tends to be around 85%. Even more importantly, the fructose in dates and honey also acts very differently in the body because it is the natural form, bound with vitamins, minerals, phytonutrients and fibre – not the refined, unbound form. In short, unlike agave syrup, dates and honey truly are natural, unprocessed whole foods. That said, although these are much healthier choices than agave and can safely be used every day, they should still be consumed only in small quantities.

We don’t sell dates, honey or stevia, so we have nothing to gain from you switching from agave to these, should you choose to do so. In fact, to the contrary, our decision to stop selling agave will have a negative effect on our bottom line. We have no motive in sharing this information except that of helping you to your very highest level of health – something you can count on us to always put ahead of any other consideration.

We'd be interested to know what you think of our decision, so why not vote in our poll and also leave a comment (please scroll down to leave it on this site, rather than on the poll itself) to explain why you voted as you did.

That's so great to know. Thank you for explaining so clearly. You may find that distributing that information has a positive effect on your bottom line as a company. I for one am now even more inclined to use you as my raw produce provider :-D

Having had cancer it is important I avoid all sugars. Your article is helpful. I have never used agave syrup. Have you thought about stevia? Mind you, it isn't licenced here... so I suspect you won't be able to stock it.
Thank you.

Thanks for this very informative article. I do have reservations about the usage of the scientific points as so many of the faults in science and medicine come from isolating components and not viewing the whole.

This being said, the article has already changed the way I think about my raw recipes. I would really would love to know the thoughts of the Fresh Network on maple syrup as I know some raw foodists occasionally use this despite it being heated--myself, admittedly, included. (I've always tended toward honey, maple syrup and date paste.) If comparing HFCS, table sugar and agave; I think its only fair to beg the question of maple syrup's position. From sugar.org: "Maple syrup is the mixture of sugars formed when the sap of sugar maple trees is boiled down to a thick syrup. Maple sugar contains about 33% water and 60% sucrose. The remainder is a mixture of glucose, other sugars and minute traces of naturally present acids, minerals and some B-vitamins."

Where does sucrose stand in all of this, anyway? Does this liken maple syrup then to table sugar due to it being primarily sucrose? Also, seriously, why don't we bottle and sell maple sap instead of sugar? Its amazing. Mmm.

Please respond. I'd genuinely like to know if maple syrup is lumped with agave, HFCS and table sugar, or just slightly above those, but not really any good either.

Thank you for your honesty and frankness. this means we can trust you to offer for sale only those products that current knowledge supports to be good for us. I appreciate you updating your product range like this and I really admire your ethics. THANK YOU.
The Taymount Clinic for Digestive Health

Fine! And now you should stop selling raw chocolate, which is generally made from lots of “hydrolyzed high-fructose agave syrup”. BTW You should stop selling cacao too - can cause cancer, especially breast cancer in women.

I believe there are still some good Agave purchases out there. Go to www.Xagave.com/Xagavelab to read further. I know there is one other site, but cannot locage it just yet. Please don't believe all you read and hear until you experience the truth. Thanks.

Thanks for your comment, Julie. We did look into maple syrup in the course of this article, and agree that information is needed on this, as it is another very popular sweetener in the raw community, even though it isn't raw. We did not include maple syrup in the article as we feel we need to look into it more before making a statement on it. However, I can say that at this point it is looking like a healthier choice than agave, though not as good as dates or honey.

We did consider whether we should also stop selling all products containing agave, which includes certain brands of chocolate and a couple of nut butters. As we mentioned in the article, our position on agave is that it is a treat, not a health food, and something to consume in small quantities and occasionally.

So this is why we said in our guidelines that the number one most important thing is not to have it in your kitchen cupboard as the sweetener you add to your recipes. From talking to people, we know that many go through a bottle or more a week that way, and that is what we did not want to be a part of anymore.

Dot D, we agree that some agaves are better quality than others and we respect that others may draw different conclusions from ours.

However, in our opinion, for an agave to be as good a choice as dates or raw honey, it would have to:
(a) have a fructose content of less than 50%, and
(b) contain natural fructose rather than refined fructose.

To our knowledge, no agave syrup fulfills either (a) or (b). However, if anyone can show us evidence that contradicts any of what we've reported, we'll certainly look at it carefully.

Regarding the other 'sweeteners' mentioned here:
Well... honey is not vegan! Its 'production' is cruel. Really.
And stevia is not safe: European scientists cite potential adverse side effects to the male reproductive system. When fed high doses of stevioside for nearly two years, sperm production in male rats was noticeably reduced and the weight of seminal vesciles declined. Likewise, when female hamsters were fed large amounts of a stevioside derivative called steviol, their offspring were found to be fewer and smaller. Furthermore steviol has successfully been converted into a mutagenic compound, which may promote cancer by causing genetic mutation of a cell’s DNA. Often stevia causes headaches.
For raw cakes, brownies and icecream I'm using bananas and sometimes dates - that's all.

Great to hear your honesty, especially as you must sell lots of agave. Whilst I agree on you stopping selling, I also disagree. Let people make their choice what to buy - as long as they know the facts and the labelling is 100% correct -and those are the problems. For optimum health we should never eat anything that isn't raw but we are guided by others, by advertising and by whats on the labels, and then we make our own choices. Well done Fresh Network and may your honesty forever flow.

I am concerned that the article leaves out a very important figure. It refers to 'high fructose consumption', but does not state what this is. This is critical to the credibility of the article because if we do not know what is 'high consumption' we cannot make an informed decision.

Everything we eat can be taken in overdose, including water, so we need to know if the occasional spoonful of agave would be considered 'high consumption' and therefore dangerous, or if we have to be consuming a much larger amount before we are likely to be faced with problems.

So basically, we have taken it on trust for the last few years. Agave is the answer. Who was telling us this? Every raw foodist retailer. Why should we believe anything else now? This is the problem with the raw food industry. It is not backed by science, so sellers can make all sorts of claims based on trust. And more fool me for passing on information about agave to everyone else.

Well done for discovering this and saying it. But it's a little late. Basically, anything that is mass produced is suspect. Especially raw chocolate makers.

The best sweetner I have found is xylitol. It has zero impact on blood sugar levels, comes from a natural source and is being used more and more by well known raw foodists such as Kate Magic. It also has no impact on candida and has been approved for use in the UK and can widely be bought here.

Thanks for the question, Jo, regarding what is a safe consumption of fructose. We attempted to answer it in the article to the extent we feel it can be answered. We do realize it's vague, but it has to be as we have not seen research that enables us to apply specific quantities to that - which would, in any case, vary from person to person based on multiple variables such as weight, activity levels, numerous biochemical factors, and also the individual's specific health goals.

In this article Joseph Mercola takes a very strong line against agave and ALL forms of fructose, refined or natural.

He puts 25g of fructose a day from ALL sources as the upper limit, and says that this is around one tablespoon of most agaves. That quantity, however, would be based on consuming NO other fructose and all fruits contain fructose (vegetables have much smaller amounts). So clearly, to the extent one is following Mercola's guidelines AND eating a healthy diet centred around fruits and vegetables, that would leave little if any room for concentrated sweeteners such as agave.

We consider Joseph Mercola a credible source of information - however we can't personally vouch for the accuracy of everything stated here, simply as we have not yet looked into it in detail. We include it here in case it is helpful to anyone. As stated in our article, it is our position that there is a huge distinction between the natural fructose in fruit and any form of refined fructose.

so rats were forced to eat 'high' doses of stevia and their health suffered! I am sure that their health would also suffer if they were fed on nothing but high doses of fresh dates! The data from animal experiments can be manipulated to 'prove' anything you want it to prove. It would not surprise me at all if these experiments were funded by the sugar industry.

Xylitol seems like another artificial sweetener to me. How is it produced? Is this RAW food or WHOLE food? It probably comes from GMO cornfields from China! The only 'non-chocolate' I can recommend is Vanoffe [by The Raw Chocolate Company] - sweetened only by the natural sweetness of carob and made without cacao powder (only cacao butter is used!).

Great article and glad that the real dangers of Agave Nectar have finally been exposed. I use Stevia. As you say, it is not available in the UK but I get it from The Hippocrates Health Institue in Florida. Stevia is the ONLY sweetner that Hippocrates endorse and I find it invaluable in my raw food diet.

Hellooo, Great article,
Please could you give a word on maple syrup!
I assume it is boiled down but what is its makeup? Also is there a source of raw maple syrup and is it possible to buy it raw? What would it look, feel and taste like, anybody know?

Thanks for the interesting article. I had come to the conclusion that Agave syrup was not as healthy as first thought recently but your article explained all the reasons very well.
After looking into the alternatives I have thought that yacon syrup is probably one of the heathiest choices so would like to hear your thoughts on this?
Thanks,
Julia

Well done. As a diabetic I've been avoiding it as I worked out the truth of your article, just because I need a load of insulin post a food with agave in (say commercial raw chocolate) as I would have done if I'd had sugar (let's say a bar of galaxy).

With chocolate - if you want it, why not make it yourself, raw fooders. Personally I plonk in a big amount of mesquite or vanilla, or both, to give it a depth of sweetness.

Well, overall Yes! Indeed this has been something on our minds for some time, (since the research results became more widespread) as we eat a good deal of it.

Additionally, we're currently building a business selling raw chocolates and other treats, and it's of great consideration to us, as we don't want to dose anyone up with "health-taking" ingredients! We can't even feed dogs or cats cooked commercial foods, as we think we're killing them! ;-) Maybe that's overboard, but we love everyone, and want to do the best, and it can be frustrating when it's hard to fully know all the answers around all these different *New & * Ancient products, that haven't been apart of our culture for years like simple sugar foods like dates, honey, or maple sugar have been.

thank you so much for this information.
I have the same questions more people have;
what about yacon?
what about maple syrup? you already explained that you are looking into that.
and you hear some contradictions about stevia as well. and I was always told that honey has a very high GI???
it is difficult to decide what is safe and what is not. I try to think; the more natural the better
but how is yacon made?? it sure is processed.

I recently read another article on agave not being that good for you. That was the first time hearing something about the agave so I didn't worry too much about it, but now after reading your information I think I will seek out receipts that I can use honey and also, look into using maple syrup in my baking. Thanks.

Hi,AND! xylitol has cavity fighting properties, and if 7 gm per day is taken
in mints or lozenges, it is an important part in a cavity reduction program.
The first steps being removing existing decay (visit the dentist regularly) as these areas are families of the bad bacteria and the total population numbers of them must be decreased, , and flossing and great cleaning of the teeth each day (this also decreases the total number of the bad guy bacteria). then improving your snacking on fermentable carbohydrates Most health food store carry these xylitol mints and lozenges. Cheers!

Thank you Fresh Newtwork for being so honest with your customers and readers.

I have two children who have a squeeze of Agave Syrup everyday over their banana ice-cream. I feel really bad that I have been giving this to them but I will use up the bottle in the fridge and move on to dates.

For me anything and everything in any way 'processed' is suspect and instinctively I don't trust any claims to the contrary by any producer, health professional, etc. Reading Ed Howell's book "Enzyme Nutrition" many moons ago confirmed this for me. Thank you to my instinct and to you for your integrity about agave. I look forward to more investigative articles of this nature from you on the othe processed products you sell.
Mary

I think unfortunately, there are going to be things that come out about many of the "healthy" foods that the raw community use regularly. One example is as people have said above about Stevia. Other products such as yacon, what are the processes involved in creating that? And honey, are all of our raw honey's processed without using any chemical treatments? Without people being able to go right back to the roots of the processes and manufacturers, how can we ever really know for sure? I think the main point is that people promoting these products need to stop stating these products are "raw" so therefore "the ulitmate" in healthy produce...later down the line it seems things come out to bite them on the bum!!! ;)

Perhaps back to rapadura sugar which I believe is raw dehydrated cane sugar. Also I wonder if there is too much emphasis on GI. If you eat sugars along with fibre and fats then the absorption is slower anyway.
Wondered what you thought of molasses - I guess it's processed

It is similar to agave in that hard plant matter is turned into a syrup through processing. So if you prefer to stick to whole, natural, unprocessed foods, there are better alternatives.

But it is also different. It has a lower fructose content than raw agave syrup, and it can be considered much lower in sugar overall as it contains no glucose and can contain up to 50% fructooligosaccharides (FOS), a sugar that passes through the body unabsorbed.

A couple of people in the raw community whose opinions we respect were refusing to use agave long before its downsides started to become publicized (as they had already figured them out) and always used yacon syrup instead.

Totally agree with the last comment - as a diabetic have been very pleased with xylitol though more than 12g it is warned may give you diarrhea as i very rarely exceed more than a couple of teaspoons it is not a problem :)

well done and thank you! Fresh's approach is heartwarming in these times!
we have stuck to fruits such as dates (as you recommend), figs even dried apricots and prunes as sweeteners in desserts - i also like lucuma - again a dried fruit

The article made me change my choice of sweeteners. I used only an agave syrup, which has 52% fructose. Date paste is not liquid enough for my kitchen, but today I found a rice syrup of the "Nature korn Mühle Werz" - company, which contains no fructose at all. For fine salad dressings it might be the superior solution...

However, I will be really impressed when you start pushing heavy weight behind real raw food, and not chocolates. I mean, seriously, at your shows, the chocs sell out and it is a good income, but it is not real food.

I can go without chocs now for a month, and will have a piece as a treat, but my main sugar source is apples, pears and other fruits.

Hi again,
I beleive you're misinformed. Please go to these sites and read for yourself that Agave is less than 50% fructose and is processed unharmfully. Glucose is the culprit in diabetics, I believe and Agave only has 5% glucose. Look at the charts as to how low a sweetener Agave really is!
www.blog.xagave.com
www.therawfoodworld.com
Thanks!

I have a phD in nutrition from Harvard and your report is very concerning. There is no conclusive research to support that Agave has a negative effect on one's health. The entire argument is based on excessive consumption and one would need to consume over 25 kilo per day of Agave to trigger this response. If one drank 25 kilos of water per day, internal organs would break down over a period of time.

Please do further research and I urge you not to believe everything you read. The first article about the negative effects of Agave has been traced back to the sugar companies - how very interesting

James Herlit phD

The Fresh Network responds: Thanks for your comment, James. We would be very interested to see the research you're basing the above on. We assume your assertion that one would need to consume over "25 kilos" of agave a day for it to have a negative effect on one's health was a typo? : )

Hello TFN! I love your passion for healthy eating as I share many of the same values. As a producer who uses Agave 'syrup' in my products I am more than shocked to see this.

As a scientist, however, I find myself wanting to analyse the facts for myself, rather than believe the first thing that is put in front of me. If you could let me know the sources you used for the basis of your report that would be greatly appreciated :)

Please don't misunderstand my intentions as an attack on the validity of your arguments. I think its great that work is being done to expose the truth!

I always knew there was something up with agave.My gut feeling was correct! After giving up sugar last year and discovering agave, I was like yay! I can have sweet things but I don't really like the taste of agave and find that you have to use so much to get it to bring out the taste in things. I also put on weight last summer through discovering this sweetener it also did not help me get my candida under control so I stopped using it. I recently discovered yacon syrup which I adore but have yet to do research on this to find out if it is okay- my body says it is so i'm hoping it is but this article has inspired me to do some much needed sugar/sweetener research though I find it all very confusing! Any research you find on yacon or maple syrup I will be very inteerested inn ....thanks for this info and as for all this negativity about raw chocolate makers...blah! I am one and never use agave only yacon, honey and sometimes maple syrup cos I have always believed that they are better for you than agave!

We did consider whether we should also stop selling all products containing agave. As we mentioned in the article, our position on agave is that it is a treat, not a health food, and something to consume in small quantities and *occasionally*.

We still consume it this way and we don't know of a single raw fooder, no matter how "strict", who will not occasionally have an agave-sweetened dessert or snack. So we continue to sell these products but we don't market them misleadingly -this article is of course powerful "anti-marketing" for them - and it is up to the customer to decide.

As we said in our guidelines, the number one most important thing in our opinion is not to have agave in your kitchen cupboard as the sweetener you add to your recipes. From talking to people, we know that many go through a bottle or more a week that way, and *that* is what we did not want to be a part of anymore.

Everything said in that blog would only apply to a processed agave. The argument being that the fructose in an unprocessed food product would react in the system like the fructose in an orange or an apple. A true raw agave is also a wonderful pre-biotic due to its high inulin content. Like all food products, the quality comes down to the same two questions: how was it grown and how was it processed? If man has messed around with it too much it probably is going to kill you. That may seem like a ridiculous statement, but it is a good rule of thumb for those seeking to improve the quality of their diet.

That being said, people are way too addicted to "sweet" and should try some other flavors for a change, like bitter or sour. We are all so focused on what the available "sweet" substitute is that we lose sight of the obvious question .... ahhhhh ... why do I need to eat so much sweet food? Our natural craving for sweet is the body's way of telling you that you need more glyconutrients. If a person simply must have something sweet, they should eat some fresh fruit. Then there is always maple syrup, honey, yacon, lacuma, loh han guo, stevia, sweet potato powder and powders made from every fruit on the planet if a person just can't quit their sweet tooth.

I BOUGHT STEVIA POWDER IN THE UK the other day. I bought it at Bushwacker health shop in Hammersmith, London. I was really surprised to see it there. It was only 1.69 for 100g. It is by Cotswold Health Products Ltd. It states on the packet Not For Human Consumption as that is the only way it can then be sold. It is green. But NuNaturals Nustevia is the best and with no bitter after taste which can easily be bought online or on Ebay. In fact not so long ago I bought some from an English business seller on Ebay. Its easy to buy if you click on Worldwide but best to buy the extra large size as much more value for money.

Hi,
I work for an agave manufacturer, and we don't use any of the chemicals some say are used in the agave industry. If fact, we don't use any chemicals at all.

It is troubling how this misinformation goes viral on the web. We have hundreds of devoted customers who are diabetic. The body processes our 100% blue agave differently that surgar or honey. That's why it's considered healthier.

Xylitol is great, except for the fact that it is a laxative as all polyols seem to be!(sorbitol, mannitol, etc) I have used it over the last few years but am now using hardly any as I've had some bad diarhoea episodes and I think my stomach has become sensitised to it now. I would say probably long term dont use more than 25g a day